Schubert String Quartets

I don't know the Melos recording, but the Jerusalem Quartet on Harmonia Mundi could never be accused of harsh, it is a revealing performance and well-recorded. I'm sure there are many others.

I have the complete set on DG vinyl, and it sounds fantastic, not harsh at all. Death and the Maiden is one of my favorite quartets and the Melos is my go to performance when I want to hear it.

On CD, Takács Quartet is very good. 

To all: thank you for your excellent suggestions.  I will investigate these.  A complete cycle by the Leipzig Quartet is available on the DMG label.  I think that has gathered some good reviews.  I haven't heard the Jerusalem Quartet though I know they have been getting good reviews too.  I have the Takacs quartet in the Beethoven quartets, which are excellent.  I will do some exploring. 

RaceTripper - interesting that the vinyl version sounds better.  Some recordings don't take well to re-mastering for CD; I wonder if this is another instance.  I agree the Melos performance is superb.  Ultimately, of course, I think it's better to have a good performance in a poor (CD) recording rather than the other way round  Perhaps it's being greedy to want both!

I'm a hard-core analog vinylphile anyway, and can't listen to digital for more than two hours or so before finding all of it hard and harsh, and that's with an ND5. 

I have the Melos Death and The Maiden twice. One in the complete box and one as a separate DG single record release. Both sound superb. 

Hi RaceTripper: I wouldn't want to open up the debate of vinyl vs digital, as it's often down to personal preference, and any medium has its compromises.  For me personally, I like the silent background of CD and was happy to ditch LPs to move away from the warps, clicks, scratches etc which were prevalent in the 1970s/1980s on the LPs I was buying at that time. As a matter of interest, have you listened to any of the latest classical downloads from the likes of Linn, Channel Classics or Chandos, in 24/96 or 24/192 - if so, do you find these to be more "listenable" than CD? 

I mostly don't really have warps and scratches on my vinyl (some 2700+ LPs), and for the most part the surface noise is very low to nearly non-existant when using a turntable with a quality bearing. As for the clicks, most of those are gone when you use a record cleaning machine.

I have numerous digital downloads from eClassical, HDTracks, and Linn in 24/96 and 24/192. They are OK, but still nowhere near vinyl quality. I rip and stream all my CDs, but I can't say the digital downloads are more or less listenable than ripped CDs on the longer term since they mix together when I play the digital streamer.

Thanks again to everyone for the interesting responses.  In the end I decided to get the Leipzig Quartet performances (complete set) on MDG.  The recordings are very clear and IMHO warmer and less tiring than I personally found the Melos to be.  The performances are also very fine.